The wealth-to-salary ratio: a simple indicator of inequality
Authors: Jhordan Silveira de Borba, Sebastian Gonçalves, Celia Anteneodo
Abstract
In previous studies, using agent-based simulations of a model of a capitalist economy proposed by Ian Wright, we showed that inequality in both wealth and income distributions is largely governed by a single key parameter: the ratio between average wealth per capita and the mean salary, denoted by $R$. This parameter captures the relative importance of accumulated assets compared with labor income. In the model, larger values of $R$ are systematically associated with higher levels of inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient. In the present work, we investigate whether this relationship is also observed in real-world economies. Using empirical data from the World Inequality Database (WID) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), we construct empirical estimates of $R$ and compare them with standard measures of income and wealth inequality. We find a positive relation between $R$ and inequality across several empirical settings, with the strongest relationships observed for mature and advanced economies. These results provide empirical support for the role of the wealth-to-salary ratio as a simple macroscopic indicator associated with economic inequality, while also highlighting the limitations imposed by differences in data definitions and measurement across countries and periods.
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Prior work it builds on
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Abstract
We present the data on wealth and income distributions in the United Kingdom, as well as on the income distributions in the individual states of the USA. In all of these data, we find that the great majority of population is described by an exponential distribution, whereas the high-end tail follows a power law. The distributions are characterized by a dimensional scale analogous to temperature. The values of temperature are determined for the UK and the USA, as well as for the individual states of the USA.
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Abstract
This article is a supplement to my main contribution to the Routledge Handbook of Complexity Economics (2023). On the basis of three recent papers, it presents an unconventional perspective on economic inequality from a statistical physics point of view. One section demonstrates empirical evidence for the exponential distribution of income in 67 countries around the world. The exponential distribution was not familiar to mainstream economists until it was introduced by physicists by analogy with the Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution of energy and subsequently confirmed in empirical data for many countries. Another section reviews the two-class structure of income distribution in the USA. While th…
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Basic kinetic wealth-exchange models: common features and open problemsM. Patriarca, E. Heinsalu, A. Chakraborti · 2006 · The European Physical Journal B · Not summarized yet
Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Updated on 31 October 2026.